


Enjoying the Show?

by Wiz_is_bored



Category: Hatchetfield Universe - Team StarKid
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen, Hanging, Hive King Paul Matthews, Human Sacrifice, Nobody Lives/Everyone Dies, Public Execution, i am once again writing a song for fanfic purposes, infected!paul, nightmare time 3 spoilers, the last chapter will be pretty disturbing the rest of the tags are just for that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28591701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wiz_is_bored/pseuds/Wiz_is_bored
Summary: By the end of it, Emma won't be sure how long ago the meteor hit. Weeks? Weeks will sound right. Or maybe months. Regardless, she'll be amazed that she managed to live as long as she did.Emma manages to evade the apotheosis for a while, and they are none too happy about it
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Isolation

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically a dream i had + 4 chapters of build up. what can i say, my subconcious knows the kind of fic i like to write. I have a bunch of this alreay written - and i posted some of it during hatchetober - but im still going to space out updates since i need time to work on certain parts

By the end of it, Emma won't be sure how long ago the meteor hit. Weeks? Weeks will sound right. Or maybe months. Regardless, she'll be amazed that she managed to live as long as she did.

She's injured in the helicopter crash. Not horribly injured, but injured enough that Paul insists she doesn't come with him to the old Starlight Theatre. Instead, she limps towards the shore with the task of locating some sort of boat that they could feasibly figure out how to operate, and laying low until dawn. Dawn is when she promised she'd get herself off this godforsaken island, regardless of whether Paul comes back from his confrontation with the hive.

Dawn comes, and Emma finds herself breaking her promise. With colour creeping into the night she resolves to wait one more minute. And another. And one more minute after that. The sun hasn’t fully broken free of the horizon, it's still dawn, right? Red still wounds the sky. So she can’t leave yet. She can’t leave Paul. Maybe that's mad, because she barely knows the guy and this goddamn island is crawling with musical zombies. But the whole time she's known him has been mad. Maybe she's just following the trend.

Looking back, it will seem obvious that she's waiting for no-one, that Paul's already fucking dead. But perhaps it's a good thing that she sticks around for as long as she does. Perhaps if she didn’t she would have taken the fate of the one other person that seems to have survived this. A stranger, sprinting to shore and launching themself into a boat, barely taking a moment to start up the motor before disappearing into the haze of fog. For a few moments Emma simply stares out after them. And then she jumps, a spasm of pain jolting through her bad leg as a gunshot rings in her ears. Someone is out there in the fog, she doesn’t know who - she never will - but what she understands immediately was that whoever it is doesn’t want anyone leaving the island. Infected or not.

There's no plan after that. She can’t risk venturing into that fog, so she stumbles out of the boat and starts limping. The only thought in her mind is to get herself a decent hiding place and finally sleep. Maybe find something to eat. Some painkillers would be welcome too.

Emma wakes up at noon, still hungry, still hurting, in a dumpster.

The rest of that first day in post-apotheosis Hatchetfield is… eerie. Though on high alert, Emma neither sees nor hears anyone. Anywhere. She doubts that she would be able to limp all the way back to her shitty apartment, but that doesn’t matter; it seems that half of the town has left their doors unlocked, some wide open. Since these people are presumably infected, Emma has no qualms about taking food from their kitchens, grabbing a few warmer clothes from their wardrobes, and attempting to patch herself up with their first aid kits. Her leg is gashed in places but she knows something else is wrong. Maybe it’s just a pulled muscle. Maybe it’s broken. She figures it’s better to be safe than sorry, and for want of a better splint lays a wooden spoon along her thigh and wraps duct tape around her ‘borrowed’ jeans. That evening she resolves to hide again - she doesn’t trust the empty streets to stay empty. She fills a backpack with food, bottled water and first aid supplies, takes a kitchen knife and climbs into another dumpster.

She’ll sleep in a dumpster every night after that. Well, except for the last. By the end of it, the smell won’t bother her anymore.


	2. Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma runs into a familiar face in town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the tags have been updated since i was thinking about that good ol nightmare time lore and my idea of how the ending will go got a bit more fucked

Emma is right not to trust the streets. She isn't quite sure what she's looking for, where she's going, or what the fuck she's going to do, but on the second day she finds herself stumbling around the backstreets and alleyways of Hatchetfeild. Every so often she hears a faint whisper of song, turns tail, and forces her dodgy leg into limping away as quickly and quietly as possible.

Eventually she has to stop. She has to eat, she has to take more painkillers, she has to fucking  _ breathe. _ Slumped against a dirty brick wall, she pulls a cereal bar from her bag and practically inhales it before leaning back, trying to resist the urge to scream. The drugs can only do so much. After a long moment spent trying to pull herself back together she tentatively pokes at the offending thigh, trying once again to search out any obvious reasons for the pain.

"Still hurts?"

A chill runs down her spine as she looks up. There he is, leaning on the railing of a fire escape, grinning down at her. The Thing that used to be Paul.

Seeing him will never fail to make her breath catch in her throat.

“What’s it to you?” she retorts through gritted teeth as she slowly drags her bag closer. He chuckles, standing up straight, with an air of importance that he’s not supposed to have.

“Am I not allowed to show concern for an injured…  _ friend?” _

“Oh, we are  _ not  _ friends.”

She slips her hand into the bag as inconspicuously as possible as he leisurely begins to descend the stairs, the creaking of the metal in the eerily quiet alley making Emma wonder how he got there without her noticing. In reality he was above her, watching, the whole time. Waiting for his moment.

"Now, Emma, there's no need to be so  _ hurtful.  _ I thought we were getting along quite well!"

The man seems so entirely… _wrong._ Like an actor with no direction, imitating Paul with arrogance he never possessed. Her hand finds the hilt of the knife.

"I was getting along with  _ Paul.  _ You're just some goo pretending."

He stops, leaning on the rail once again. “I think you’ll find you’re wrong there.” His voice is a little sterner than before, though the grin never falters “I  _ am  _ Paul. I’m Paul, but I’m  _ so much more  _ than the Paul you knew. And  _ you _ could be more too.”

Dread settles heavy in her stomach. She needs to get out of there. Now.

“No thanks,” she says as she struggles to her feet, one hand still hidden in the backpack. “I’d rather not. Blue shit’s not really my style.”

His prey is trying to get away. He can’t have that, that’s  _ not  _ how  _ his _ show is supposed to go. With a single bound, the creature clears the railing and lands on a dumpster, leaving a sizable dent in the lid.

“Really?” He snarls. Emma takes a shaky step away. “Really.”

“I happen to think it would suit you well.” His feet hit the ground with inhuman grace.

“It really wouldn’t.” She stumbles as that stupid fucking leg gives way. Without missing a beat, he leaps forward and his arm whips out to catch the front of her hoodie before she can fall.

“Oh, Emma,” he mutters softly, pulling her closer to his inhumanly bright eyes and blue-stained teeth, forcing her onto her toes. “Don’t you know the show needs its leading lady?”

“You better not be about to fucking sing.”

He is, in fact, about to fucking sing. But before a single note can leave his mouth he’s cut off by the blade slashing across his face.

Emma hits the ground hard, fumbling her bag onto her back, scrambling away from the wounded creature as it screams out its rage - a shriek that is echoed through the town. She’s not sure if she’s running or crawling but somehow she gets herself to move, stumbling through the alleyways, hoping beyond hope that she’s not being followed. It burns. God, it burns like hellfire but she doesn’t stop until the damned leg collapses under her.

And she stays there where she fell, alone with the pain and a knife streaked with blue. In time she’ll ponder the words of the Thing that used to be Paul. She’ll make vain promises to nobody that the show will  _ never  _ have its leading lady. But for now, the best she can do is stare at the sky and thank whatever twisted God might be up there that she’s somehow alive.

For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! :)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading :)


End file.
